NBCNews.com’s Traffic Declines as MSN Referrals End

As we reported, the month of July marked the end of NBCNews.com’s referral traffic from MSN, with network executives expecting a sharp drop in traffic as a result.

According to Comscore, from January, which is right before NBCNews.com relaunched, through the end of July, the website’s unique visitors traffic is down -28%. In that timespan, it lost 12,222,000 visitors.

“The loss of the Microsoft referrals was factored into our strategy and business plan when we took full ownership of our digital properties,” Gregory Gittrich, head of NBC News digital’s news and product unit tells TVNewser.

“We are focused on building a highly engaged audience, driving video views, and reaching our users wherever they are — and we’re encouraged by the goals we’ve already exceeded.”

Comparing June, which was the last full month the site received MSN referrals, to July, the site was down -19%. It should be noted, these numbers are for desktop traffic, not mobile traffic, for which MSN referral traffic didn’t apply.

Numbers were positive for Today.com, which also lost its MSN traffic referrals. From January through the end of July, the site was up +2% in unique visitors.

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